Blog of Dr. Miland Brown that features different aspects of world history. Not everything can be covered but sites dealing with any historical issue or topic are possible future posts. Also includes sites which discuss teaching history. Dr. Brown is an academic in North America.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

History of Turks and Caicos Islands

The Turks and Caicos Islands are situated over 575 miles southeast of Miami, Florida and 39 miles south east of Mayaguana in the Bahamas. Covering over 193 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the Turks and Caicos Islands has one of the longest coral reefs in the world.

The history of the islands has some exciting events. The British, French, and Spanish fought over the islands repeatedely in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Pirates were a common site in those days as well. Recent history is mostly political and a lot more tame.

From the site:

The islands were uninhabited when, about 1678, the Bermudians began to visit them to rake the salt found in the ponds. These visits became annual and permanent settlements were made. In 1710, the British were expelled by the Spaniards, but they returned and the salt trade (largely with the American colonies) continued to be carried on by the Bermudians despite attacks by Spaniards and French, and counter-claims to the islands by the British authorities at the Bahamas, who about 1765 made good their claim.

From about 1690 to 1720, pirates hid in the cays of the Turks and Caicos Islands, attacking Spanish treasure galleons to Spain from Cuba, Hispaniola and the Spanish posessions in Central America and Peru.

In 1799, the islands were given representation in the Bahamas Assembly, and they remained part of that colony until 1848, when on the petition of the inhabitants they were made a separate colony under the supervision of the governor of Jamaica. This arrangement proving financially burdensome the islands were in 1873 definitely annexed to Jamaica.

2 comments:

Hello - I could not find an e-mail, so I trying to contact you through here. I was just happy to find another history focused - exclusively, in fact - blog. My blog, at http://tearosefury.blogspot.com/, covers many topics and also acts as a personal blog, but I blog extensivley about historical topics, mostly relating to the 18th century, and thus was glad to see I was not entirely alone. Thanks, keep it up :).